So, I’m wearing a wrist band right at this very moment that entitles me to a Wii.

I lined up this morning at 5:20 on Broadway at the Toys ‘R’ Us (you’ll just have to imagine the ‘R’ is backwards). I was the 11th in line; the first person had started the line at 8 p.m. the previous day.

I have to say, that if these people who were in line with me are my “tribe” then we are going to get eaten by wolves if we don’t starve to death first. You’ve heard of Motley Crew, right? I like the 7th guy: he’d lined up for (and bought) a Wii on the first day it went on sale, and had “so much fun” that he “thought he’d try for another one.”

Um, yeah.

Anyway, I have to make fun of them because I’m sure somewhere someone is making fun of me for getting up about 7 hours earlier than I normally do on a Saturday, and for being such an inveterate geek. I have to say, I was amazed at how completely out of my competance league I was in that line. I’m a huge PC tech guy, but they were tossing game title nicknames and console mods and all these historical gamer facts around and I was really barely able to follow the conversation.

Being up for sunrise is always a novel experience for me. After getting the armband, I took advantage of consciousness and went to Granville Island and was the first customer at the bakery there. The smell of fresh bread was delightful.

I’m returning to the store, armband and all, at 9:30 a.m. to actually purchase the Wii. More updates as news happens, this is Travis Smith, reporting for Unvarnished.com.

“Almost every American I know does trade large portions of his life for entertainment, hour by weeknight hour, binge by Saturday binge, Facebook check by Facebook check. I’m one of them. In the course of writing this I’ve watched all 13 episodes of House of Cards and who knows how many more West Wing episodes, and I’ve spent any number of blurred hours falling down internet rabbit holes. All instead of reading, or writing, or working, or spending real time with people I love.”

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Comments

It's early, so I forgive you, but the band's name is actually M?tley Cr?e. Mind you, if you were just making a kind of pun on the band and actually just referencing the line, then that spelling's kosher.

You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)